If they can't make it work then it will resolve itself, but I bet they did a lot of number crunching especially based on the assumption that legacies will retreat as fast as they grow to preserve per flight profitability. I think the marketing theory is they can make a 1 penny profit a lot easier than legacies will fly unprofitable flights, and they have a huge amount of existing yield they can gut before they do it in the red. Its clearly a game of chicken and they're expecting legacies to blink.

Jetblue is flying an A321 with 138 seats to London. 24 of those are the lie-flat mint product. They aren't going to be making any money in that configuration by trashing the yields. I think you are dramatically overestimating the CASM advantage over a 280 seat A339 or even a 240 seat 767-400. I just don't buy the A321 as a widebody killer over the Atlantic when the 757 also had a similar mission profile with similar theoretical CASM advantages over the widebodies of that generation.

Schoolhouse rumor (I know) is that meetings have already happened of the “not if but when” as far as the xlr and near Europe to which I replied “so when is Boston opening.” He said that’s what the meeting was about.

So there goes our shot at Boston…

You mean like WOW or NAI or Thomas Cooke ran the numbers? This has been tried over and over. If an Iceland stop over to access true LCC frequency and seat capacity then ULCC transatlantic flight is not really feasible. Legacies have been seeing near red on the routes for a while, you know what makes it work. Cargo. There’s just somethings a wide body does better.

This. I was actually shocked that they decided on LHR and not LGW or some other London airport. LHR is quite an expensive airport to operate in. They’re charging a landing fee of about £21 per passenger, and have announced plans to increase that in 2022. That’s just the landing fee. Then take into account jet bridge cost, ATC services, fuel, and all the other operational expenses and the cost stacks up very quickly.

The big guys are able to offset these costs by using big planes and spreading it out. AA’s 777-300ER as an example carries 304 passengers. 60 of those seats are premium lay flat first and business class. Then there’s the freight in the belly. (321 isn’t carrying any meaningful payload there).

All that payload and you can squeeze out a profit, hopefully. How JetBlue intends to make it work in LHR with an A321 is beyond me. Only time will tell I suppose.

what about keeping a customer from LAX to LHR, instead of LAX to NYC and then transferring them to a codeshare? But I think JB and AA have partnership?

The AvWeek article stated JetBlue acquired the LHR slots well below normal market value. The problem they pointed out was that additional slots to expand won’t come nearly as cheap.

In the year of our lord 2019 BC (Before Covid), when BOS 320 was announced, I had the chance to talk to BS during a base visit...a delay in NEO deliveries has just been publicly announced and I asked him if the NEO delay would affect the BOS opening. I was told there was no plan to use the NEO for Trans-Atlantic (at least back then) and that BOS had enough domestic 320 operations to support the pilot base, so NEO delays were not an issue.

Who knows if that is still true today.

The horse himself!

I know BS gets a lot of shade thrown his way for over promising and then under delivering with regard to timelines of results getting released. I’ve had the opportunity to talk one on one with him on three separate occasions and he seems like a genuine nice guy who shares whatever info he can, and I believe the info was true at the time of our conversations. Between the managers above him combined with network changing their minds every 6-9 minutes, I believe he is at the end of the whip trying to hang on.

Yet you can Shirley see the advantage a 321XLR(etc) has over a 757 in costs right?

One flight a day with 24 lay flats is 8760 seats a year. Then its 2, 3, 4, 5 flights a day out of NYC and BOS. Then its a similar amount to DUB, CDG and maybe a few others and soon you have 50-100K lay flats a year flooding the TA market, plus over 4 times that many in economy. And that's even assuming they are the only ones that try it. And we can add some cargo onto that as well, times the number of flights. All of that (lay flat, economy and even limited cargo) will come straight off the bottom lines of existing legacy yields.

Its not that the plane used is a "widebody killer" but the model itself is a yield killer. Traditionally legacy marketing loves to surrender some capacity to that kind of pressure to preserve on paper per flight near term profits even though its a guaranteed loss in the long run.

We don't know for sure how legacy marketing will respond to this particular threat this time. Failing to brief the threat and come up with a plan to mitigate it only amplifies the danger.

Who was meeting? DL or JB?

I agree a widebody does it better. JB is going to war with the army they have though, and the new 321 is better than any previous NB at least. They don't have to "win" to win. They only have to wage a war of yield reducing/capacity dumping attrition to cause legacies to reduce their footprint to accomidate them. Unlike other attempts, they have a massive domestic feed network already established. They will take significant amounts of lay flat, economy and even some cargo, straight off the top of existing legacy revenue, while reducing revenue on what's left. Legacies will soon have to choose between losing some money near term to fight it off or lose far more over the long term to accomidate it.

Maybe, maybe not. There are lots of markets to Europe that have plenty of O&D from BOS; its hardly a secondary city just because its not NYC. We already fly 330's to Europe from BOS. Their 321 product is great...for a 321 but its certainly not better than our suites on our 339's. Plus its not just us; they wont be giving BA and VS a run for their money to LHR with a 321. They also dont have slots for LHR indefinitely. I dont see them as a huge threat.

I believe he was referring to DL and opening of the BOS 320 base.

Never spoken to him but I get that impression too.

Don't call me Shirley

dude, you can’t be serious

check mov ref det ON

I agree that widebodies are better all things equal. Maybe this is cherry picking, but I checked a couple random dates for DL-One vs Mint for trips on the same days and JB was well under half the cost. They don't have to strike revenue gold and out generate existing revenue; all they have to do is reduce yields and dump capacity enough to survive and they win simply by taking existing marketshare. Ignoring them out of an overconfidence about widebodies is a mistake. If they are poaching any premium pax whatsoever (and they clearly are) they are draining legacy airline's most valueable source of revenue and profits. Soon it will be tens of thousands of lay flat seats a year and growing. These aren't $49 cruise ship connection super savers; this is a direct attack on the crown jewels of revenue generation and ignoring it because its "just one flight" or "just two flights" etc will prove to be a complete blunder. This is a serious challenge that will grow significantly going forward. Airlines will either spend the money to deal with it now or they will inherit a far more costly battle long term.

I forgot some parts of the movie and watched it with my son when he was 11. My wife was not happy lol

I think this is very well said. I will say I’m not a fan of our leadership in any way BUT I get a feeling our top leaders understand this. But we cannot compete 1v1 with their product simply due to our expense to operate. . But we can differentiate to retain and continue to pull a certain customer.

With the new increased standard pax and baggage weights can the A321 even make it across the pond with a full load? Especially the return flight against winter headwinds?

The XLR, yes.

With only 138 seats, probably not a huge issue most of the time. Brochure range for the LR is 4,000nm with 206 pax. Guess we will see though.

I completely agree that it’s not a competition DAL can just ignore because we have wide bodies. However, there are reasons why this isn’t the kind of game changer, rethink your whole transatlantic scheme.
LHR slots are expensive and limited, as are any of the “close in” major European destinations. The only reason LHR allowed this to happen is to keep competition fresh and prices down, it’s not a new thing. New airlines come into major hubs all the time to accomplish this. Importantly though they will not get the slots to flood the market with these jets. If you make $10 per pax in taxes, which aircraft are you going to approve 135 or 335? The legacies have gotten used to this. That is why corporate contracts are so important.

If you have 150 of the Fortune 500 companies locked in to TA travel you don’t really have to go chasing every business class ticket, they aren’t going to jump to a competitor quickly. Then it comes down to convenience, schedule integrity, and services. That’s where wide bodies come into play.

Mint may be nice, but a NB just isn’t as comfortable, and cargo capacity gives much more financial flexibility to the route.

JB is a different animal in that they do hold some sway in the corporate contract world. Which is why I think we can’t disregard their threat. The result of this competition will be cabin updates, better WiFi and hopefully more flight options spread throughout the day from more places.

I've flown JB mint on a trans con and I have to say it was excellent. Honestly rivaled Delta One on the 330. Mint was a little cleaner and had better food and drinks also. Plus happ(ier) FAs. I'm sure their trans Atlantic service is top notch, but at the end of the day it's all about the numbers. We'll see if they can do it profitably and hurt us once business travel and international travel really opens back up.

jetBlue FA’s had to apply to do the TA trips, and I believe that once selected, that is all they will do for a 2 year deal.

4000 miles quickly turns into 2800 miles with 150 knot headwinds, poor track altitude assignments and a alternate required on arrival. The 757 with the same 4000 mile range struggled in the winter. It was amusing to listen to the UAL EWR crews trying to beat each other into Gander for gas on 123.45.

Everyone said JetBlue would run us and American out of the transcon market. Instead our transcon service boomed.

Of course. That's one component of every legacy's strategy. I'm merely pointing out that yield trashing fare wars are inevitable and necessary. They cannot be avoided to preserve expected yields and "capacity dicipline" went out the window when this was announced. IMO it will require an agressive and incredibly expensive competitive response. In no way can legacies allow a truly comparable product to gut fares in the most lucrative portions of the market by more than half, growing on their terms, by hoping to appease the crocodile so it eats them last. This is one of the biggest threats to legacy business models in concept, even if the scale seems manageable at the moment.

Charging over double and hoping it works out due to existing corporate accounts, the percieved comfort of widebodies, past performance or current inertia, or even just the denial of how agressive of a threat this actually is will prove to be a mistake down the road for any airline that underemphasizes how critical this is. Tens of thousands of lay-flat seats a year will be added at the very least, in addition to further negative yield pressure in economy and yes, even some cargo. They don't have to dominate marketshare to cause significant damage to revenue going forward.

I don't know if legacies will need to use the same AC or not, or if the much less efficient 757 can be effective, or if widebodies are the best defense. But this is a focused fare war that needs to be taken very seriously. They add capacity and undercut us by half, we should all respond in the same way.

I wouldn’t worry about it. Everyone wants to make money, and no one thinks they’re gonna price dump anyone out of a market. The apple is big enough for everyone to have a bite.

They buy credit card statistic data. JB and Delta both know how many sales they loose to each other, which routes, how far, and and at what price point. They know based on credit card zip codes how many passengers drive past EWR to fly JFK, and vis versa. They know how long you were on your computer before you pulled the trigger, which site you switched from and switch site you went to after.

Every employee I’ve ever met would spend more of their company’s dollars to gain Skymiles for personal travel.

Delta may loose some passengers that always fly JB, but previously couldn’t to Europe. Maybe they’ll gain a few British travelers who price shop and can deal with the connectivity JB can give them to US.

This 1000%. If we don’t play the long game here, even with accepting short term losses, then we lose big in the long game.

The prices that JB is charging now might be low, but that's likely to stimulate the market and not sustainable in the medium to long term. I bet by next summer the prices will be higher, esp for Mint. Also, starting this month JB had to reduce service to 4x a week, while starting service to Gatwick (4x a week too). Business travelers don't like service that isn't daily. Now they say they'll increase service in the future. But any future growth will need more slots, which are becoming expensive again (from Avweek).

Fuel, landings fees, ATC service, passenger handling fees are all the same. Aircraft acquistion cost is close - the only variable is labor and overhead. One thing the legacies can do is spread a lower profit on a BOS-LHR market over their entire network - so while they are losing $$, compared to the whole network it isn't a lot. And with Delta building up BOS with service to non-hub markets, it won't be long before we see LHR-BOS-CLE or LHR-BOS-DEN (or whatever), competing with JB for the whole trip.

In the end, the wide bodies (lower cost per seat mile) and large network the legacies provide I think can match the "cool" factor of JB and the fresh service they provide.

The Jet Blue experiment is interesting.

MaxJet, EOS, and SilverJet all tried to grab market share from the "NYLON" (New York to London) routes with premium only seating. All failed for the usual reasons. I believe, and hope, that JetBlue will fail for the same reasons.

Because these routes are hugely profitable for the legacy carriers (for the pre-Covid business seats, anyway), I'd be surprised to see the traditional carriers lying down and taking any competition from JetBlue. Personally, I hope Delta, American, and United (plus "partners") crush them. Bias: acknowledged.

Who knows?

Here's a funny SilverJet add, a bit cheeky in it's heyday (of 1-2 years, in the dark naive and bigoted years of 2007), when there were such Neanderthal concepts of "women" and "men" loos. :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvtpmMrSvlI

That's what I'm wondering about. I agree that should be the battle plan but am concerned that short term next quarter (etc) decisions could drive acquiescence and placation instead of the fierce competition that it warrants. Much better to lose profits and even fly at a loss for a while now to nip this in the bud than to allow it to mushroom into 100,000+ lay flat TA seats a year plus all the other negative pressures on economy and cargo.

Agreed, and hopeful it happens. BOS is a stellar market and while I don't expect DL to knock JB out of the top spot there (its probably not logistically possible even in theory) DL should absolutely become the dominant #2 airline there regardless. Premium TA flying from any major market should be viewed as a must win scenario, whatever the cost, however long it takes.

Agreed, to a point. But someone is going to have to give up existing premium TA marketshare to accomidate it, and more and more as it grows. A premium lay flat seat at less than half the price isn't just "cool factor" anymore; its an agressive and openly declared fare war by a motivated and dedicated competitor that warrants the fiercest of aggressive and competitive responses. Appeasement is a guaranteed long term loss of revenue, profits and marketshare.

Point well taken, however, the difference between B6 and all those previous carriers like MaxJet, EOS, etc. is that JetBlue is the largest carrier in BOS and one of the largest in all of the combined New York area markets (JFK, LGA, EWR). B6 can feed the Trans-Atlantic market with their domestic presence in the Northeast (mind you post Covid-Recovery).

From that perspective, as well as considering it’s a great customer service product, not a true comparison to other airlines that tried to enter TA market in the past.

Don’t forget this little nugget
https://news.aa.com/news/news-detail...7/default.aspx

It’s not just B6 alone.

Just a single day in January our D1 is $500 cheaper than JB mint. I didn’t expect to find our product to be cheaper.

Maybe delta is gonna make JB earn that TA flying.